Alfie Marshall, 12, with Shetland pony Ulverscroft Drambuie, seems confused as to which is the real Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, in the jubilee-themed horse box backstage at the London International Horse Show at Olympia. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

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Soldiers from the Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland fly back from Camp Bastion in Afghanistan to Edinburgh's Dreghorn barracks in time for Christmas. Photograph: Corporal Jamie Peters RLC/Ministry of Defence/PA

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Maryam Radjavi, the president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and leader of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, attends an international conference in Madrid, Spain, where she called for members of the EU to recognise the Iranian resistance. Photograph: Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images

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Pretty as a picture. With snow on the ground and festive lights shining, the Royal Route in the old town of Warsaw is a perfect setting for Christmas celebrations and a spot of last minute shopping. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters

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Emeli Sandé performs at a show in aid of the homeless charity Crisis at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Lucky for some, unlucky for others. The 7ft No 13, to be used on top of 1 Times Square, New York City, arrives for installation as preparations are made for the New Year's Eve celebrations. Photograph: Andrew Burton/Reuters

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Members of Victoria Soto's family including her sisters Carlee Soto (L) and Jillian Soto (2ndL) and brother Matthew Soto leave after her funeral at Lordship Community Church. Soto was killed by Adam Lanza while saving the pupils in her class at Sandy Hook Elementary School where she was a teacher. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

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A handout photo released by NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 6388, a dynamically middle-aged globular cluster in the Milky Way. While the cluster formed in the distant past (like all globular clusters, it is over ten billion years old), a study of the distribution of bright blue stars within the cluster shows that it has aged at a moderate speed, and its heaviest stars are in the process of migrating to the centre. A new study using Hubble data has discovered that globular clusters of the same age can have dramatically different distributions of blue straggler stars within them, suggesting that clusters can age at substantially different rates. Photograph: F Ferraro/AFP/Getty ImagesElsewhere in the universe the Cassini spacecraft took this mosaic of the planet Saturn and its rings backlit against the Sun using infrared, red and violet spectral filters that were combined to create an enhanced-color view, in this handout image supplied by NASA. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters

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A group of Maya priests conduct a ceremony at the archaeological site Kaminal Juyu in Guatemala City, Guatemala as the country prepares for the Maya calendar changing of era, known as 13 B'aktun and legend says this will mark the end of the world. Photograph: Saul Martinez/EPA

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President Barack Obama speaks during a press conference where he announced the creation of an interagency task force for guns. President Obama is making an administration-wide effort to solve gun violence and has asked Vice President Joe Biden to lead an interagency task force in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

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A soldier removes a gun from a pile of confiscated weapons to be destroyed at a foundry in Santiago as part of a government arms control program. Photograph: Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

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David Duncan, Brady Leman, Andreas Matt and Daniel Bohnacker off piste during the Skicross World Cup at the Val Thorens ski resort in the French Alps. Photograph: Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images

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Social inclusion minister in the state government of South Australia Ian Hunter and Leith Semmens celebrate their wedding in Jun, Spain. Photograph: Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images

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Italian stallions: St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican is seen on the backround of statues by Mexican arist Javier Marin in downtown Rome. Photograph: Filippo MonteforteAFP/Getty Images

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Indian activists participate in a candle light vigil at India Gate condemning a recent act of alleged gang rape in the city. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/EPAFilipino women gesture while dancing during the launch of the "One Billion Rising" campaign to stop violence against women in Manila. See more from around the world in 24 hours in pictures. Photograph: Aaron Favila/AP

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Palestinian girls dressed as bridesmaids sit in front of grooms during a mass wedding ceremony in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Photograph: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

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A man sits outside a shop in central Athens. Photograph: John Kolesidis/Reuters

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Firefighters line up at the funeral for school shooting victim Daniel Gerard Barden at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown. Daniel wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up. Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP

Afghan security police stand in front of a pile of confiscated drugs and alcohol during a burning ceremony in Jalalabad, east of Kabul. Around 61 tonnes of opium, heroin, alcohol and hashish were set on fire, officials said. Photograph: Rahmat Gul/AP

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A woman paints a Christmas tree bauble in a small workshop in the town of Dobrich, Bulgaria. Photograph: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images

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Margaret Aspinall who lost her son James in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, is comforted outside the high court in central London after judges quashed the original accidental death verdicts returned on 96 Liverpool football fans who died in the tragedy. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

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A television news crew works on the balcony of a toy shop in the Sandy Hook village of Newtown, Connecticut, as the media presence continues in the aftermath of the elementary school shooting. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP

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Well this is one way to prepare for a month long festival: a Sadhu, or Hindu holy man, smokes marijuana during the preparations for the upcoming Maha Kumbh festival in Allahabad, India. Photograph: Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP

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The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-07M space ship transporting US astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to the international space station blasts off from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photograph: Dmitry Lovetsky/AP

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Best feet forward: new police recruits of Jammu and Kashmir participate in a parade in Sheeri, north of Srinagar, India. Photograph: Dar Yasin/AP

Chinese trishaw drivers play with their mobile phones as they take break near the Houhai Lake in Beijing. The lake is a favorite spot for visitors in the winter months.And here a woman is helped by a man as she learns to skate on the frozen lake. Photographs: Andy Wong/AP

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Pedestrians wait for public transport as cars ride through frost haze in the abnormally freezing weather in the northeastern Kazakhstan city of Pavlodar. A cold wave of weather has hit northern Kazakhstan with temperatures dropping down to -45C. Photograph: Vladimir Bugayev/AFP/Getty Images

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Children sweep the steps near a giant mosaic of late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung, right, and Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea. Photograph: Ng Han Guan/AP

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US astronaut and international space station crew member Thomas Marshburn has his space suit checked by technicians at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Russia. Photograph: Reuters

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Indian air force personnel gather for a briefing after rehearsals near the president's palace in New Delhi ahead of the Republic Day parade in January. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/EPA

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Staff Sergeant McCrimmon takes a break while waiting for a helicopter flight out of Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

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Letters sit in a row at Royal Mail's Medway Sorting Centre in Rochester, Kent. The recently opened £70m centre replaces four sites also based in Kent and handles an average of 3.2 million items per day. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

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Taxi drivers on strike block a highway in Marseille during a protest against the social security funding act this morning. Photograph: Jean-paul Pelissier/Reuters

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Big hair: the Chicago Bulls dance team The Luvabulls perform during the Bulls NBA game against the Boston Celtics at the United Center in Chicago last night. Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA

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Well it's Christmas, so Santas are everywhere: a Filipino 'traffic enforcer' Ramiro Hinojas, wears a costume in Pasay city, south of Manila. Photograph: Francis R. Malasig/EPA

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South Koreans cast their votes for a new president at a polling station in Seoul. Photograph: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

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Leonard Cohen performs at the Madison Square Garden in New York City last night. Photograph: Mike Lawrie/Getty Images

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A clown dressed as Santa Claus talks to a woman before a mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Hundreds of clowns made their annual pilgrimage on Tuesday to the basilica to pay homage to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Photograph: Tomas Bravo/Reuters

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A woman is reflected on an untitled art work by Anish Kapoor at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia. The exhibition will run until 1 April next year.Here is Kapoor in front of his artwork Memory 2008 in the gallery. Photographs: Daniel Munoz/Reuters